Amazon’s HQ2 Will Only Worsen America’s ‘Great Divergence’

On the long list of things that New York City desperately needs—money for the subway, for affordable housing, for schools and public hospitals and universal pre-K—more high-paying, high-skilled jobs is not at the top of the list. It could be argued, in fact, that many of New York’s ills are caused by the explosion of high-paying jobs in a city where the construction of affordable housing and transit improvements has not kept up pace.

Yet New York and hundreds of other cities spent the past year trying to convince Amazon to bring 50,000 jobs to the city, a process that was rewarded on Tuesday when Amazon formally announced that it would set up new offices in Queens and in and the Crystal City area of Arlington, Virginia.

That New York and Arlington were so heavily courting Amazon is not surprising: It is a trillion-dollar public company, and it is constantly creating new divisions and products that change the way we live and work. The company has vowed to bring at least 25,000 jobs in each city, as well as $5 billion in investment,